The documentary “American Grindhouse” is Exploitation 101: a textbook-style history of the seamier side of the movie business. The director, Elijah Drenner, proceeds chronologically from the silent “Traffic in Souls” (1913) and the pivotal “Freaks” (1932) through categories like birth of baby, nudie cuties, roughies, blaxploitation and women in prison, before the exploitation-film business — and his narrative — falls apart in the 1970s with the advent of hard-core pornography and “Jaws.”

In its academic approach, “American Grindhouse” is like sex ed: the lecture gets tedious, but it’s worth sitting through for the pictures. The clips, from unnamed nudist-camp “documentaries” to classics of the genre like “Scum of the Earth” and “Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS,” are consistently diverting and sometimes surprisingly artful. The commentary, from film historians and a large group of middle-aged and older veterans of the business, can be obvious and repetitive. But the directors John Landis, Herschell Gordon Lewis (“Scum of the Earth”) and Don Edmonds (“Ilsa”) provide self-deprecating humor and pungent anecdotes.

After taking his story into the ’70s, Mr. Drenner skips ahead three decades and concludes that the grindhouse spirit is still alive, if only as a subject of parody and homage by contemporary directors like Quentin Tarantino.

Mr. Landis has a different take: the only real grindhouse movie of the last 15 years, he says, is “The Passion of the Christ.” Neither mentions that exploitative filmmaking is alive and well on reality television, or draws the straight line from “How to Stuff a Wild Bikini” to “Jersey Shore.” MIKE HALE

Photo

A poster for “Bad Girls Go To Hell,” from the documentary “American Grindhouse.”Credit
Lorber Films

HOME

Opens on Friday in Manhattan.

Directed by Yann Arthus-Bertrand

1 hour 33 minutes; not rated

A wake-up call delivered with bedtime-story unctuousness, “Home” paints the destruction of our planet in the yummiest colors imaginable. Taking the God’s-eye view, the French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand flies over 54 countries, centuries of human endeavor and multiple academic disciplines to deliver a finger-wagging indictment of our imperfect stewardship.

Though there is little here for an informed person to take issue with, the film’s well-intentioned preachiness is unlikely to win over those who favor Genesis and denial over climate science. We’ve heard it all before, if not in the schoolmarmish tones of Glenn Close, whose patronizing narration (“The earth is a miracle”) makes the film feel almost as long as the life of its subject. Accompanied by a soundtrack heavy on ethnic ululations, Ms. Close guides us from the dawn of time to the sunset of fossil-derived energy with soporific sobriety.

Injecting an essential sense of wonder into his catalog of social and environmental tragedies, Mr. Arthus-Bertrand circles the skyscrapers of Dubai and plunges into the Grand Canyon, his high-definition cameras clinging to helicopters. Skimming feed lots and parking lots, he shows us an irrigation system resembling a giant game of Twister and blasted soil the color and texture of raw meat. These geographical wounds, we are told, originate from a lifestyle that “destroys the essential to produce the superfluous” — an accusation that the film’s bankrollers, led by the corporation behind luxury brands like Balenciaga and Gucci, are probably familiar with — but their far-below beauty is fatally distancing. As a result, gazing down on what we have wrought feels less like a rap on the knuckles and more like a pat on the head. JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

DRESSED

Opens on Friday in Manhattan.

Directed by David Swajeski

1 hour 20 minutes; not rated

In “Dressed,” David Swajeski’s listless profile of the young clothing designer Nary Manivong, a passion for fashion elbows aside every other emotion. Yet even those viewers who share the film’s conviction that preparing a collection for New York Fashion Week is inherently fascinating may lose interest long before the final frock is fitted.

That’s not entirely Mr. Swajeski’s fault, though his filmmaking skills are rudimentary at best. He has chosen a subject who is clearly uncomfortable discussing his heart-tugging life story, preferring to rhapsodize about his stylistic vision. Shy and self-effacing, Mr. Manivong can barely look at the camera when recounting his troubled childhood in Columbus, Ohio. Abandoned at 14 by his Laotian parents in 2000, he lived on the streets, often sleeping in an all-night doughnut shop.

The years between then and 2007, when the film picks up, remain stubbornly vague (though Mr. Manivong’s former high school principal becomes a critical source of 11th-hour financing). Instead, we follow this designer in the run-up to his 2008 show at Bryant Park, complete with borrowed accessories and fully owned financial woes. As he chooses models and suffers a last-minute loss of his showroom (homelessness is a recurring theme), fashion industry notables pop up to pontificate and advise.

“Work like a dog,” says the designer Nanette Lepore. On the evidence of this film, I think Mr. Manivong has that part down. JEANNETTE CATSOULIS